


only in the dark

by Anonymous



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Character Study, Established Relationship, M/M, basically a story about the things that stays with you after you've been broke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-23 15:23:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13790553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Ryan had always been a small mystery among them. There were snippets and stories he shared, shrugging off any details and trying to dismiss the questions as soon as he could. And while curious, they didn’t push him to say anything.It wasn’t really their place to ask. Yet, Ryan had some habits that they couldn’t look over.or five times the boys noticed something about Ryan and one time it made sense





	only in the dark

**Author's Note:**

> it comes from a personal place, hope you like it.

It started with Michael noticing his stuff:

“That’s everything you got with you?”

Michael asked, leaning over the doorway of their front door. He pointed at the small luggage Ryan had with him, a bag over his shoulder and a box full of plants –which was kind of a surprise.

Moving to their new house had been exciting and an amazing feeling for sure, to have something they could call their own, and Ryan was more than happy to start this new chapter with the people he loved the most. Yet, he couldn’t help but blush at the comment, looking down at his stuff, too aware of it.

“Yeah,” Ryan answered, adjusting the strap of the bag on his shoulder. “Don’t need much, right?” And Michael nodded, because yeah, sure. He had been the one to throw most of the trash Geoff had been storing for god knows how long, so his own stuff hadn’t been that much either.

“Alright Ry,” Michael said as he pulled him in, pressing a hard kiss onto the half smile forming on Ryan’s lips. “Welcome home.”

The smile that bloomed onto his face had been so bright it had blinded Michael for a moment.

The next few months, they transitioned together onto a new routine: arranging their spots on the bed, managing who showers and when, how they were going to organize their clothes on the closet, who’s turn to cook and wash, mundane things like that that kind of made Michael gag at how domestic they had become. He loved it.

Along with it, he noticed other things about Ryan, as if he was discovering him all over again.

It wasn’t strange for Michael to hang out with Ryan when he did laundry, mostly because it was quiet and he liked to look at his boyfriends –can you blame him? Also, it was a good excuse for him to hide from Gavin since he was banned from the small laundry room.

He sat down on top of the counter, careful with his head and the cabinet where they stored all the things.

They talked, a good banter back and forth, and Michael couldn’t help but notice how he methodically measure the soap, how he actually separated the clothes by what they said on the small tag on the back –something that he wouldn’t have done, never. Ryan would get that small frown on his brow, as if he was concentrating on doing a good job.

Michael never commented on it, mostly because he didn’t think it was relevant enough to bring up; he only thought it was one of the hundred weird things that Ryan had within himself. Yet, when the discussion of panting the walls came up, Michael actually wanted to strangle Ryan.

“We don’t _have_ to paint the walls, Ryan!” Michael said with a smile on his face that expressed more annoyance than anything else. “They _can_ stay white! I don’t fucking care! No one does.”

It was half the truth –while they wanted to paint their bedroom, now that they had their full set of furniture with them, but deciding on which color had lead into a further discussion of painting the whole house. While Jack and Jeremy seemed half excited for it, Geoff and Gavin didn’t care and Michael was, for some reason, totally against it.

“I’m not against it!” Michael complained, when Ryan made the point. He rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to paint the whole house. It’s good as it is.”

Ryan shook his head, a little too stressed for a paint job discussion. “Fine, you know what? I paint it myself. You don’t have to worry about anything.”

Michael laughed and crossed his arms. “Sure,” he replied, that tone of disbelieve on his mouth.

It was four in the morning a week later when Michael padded down the stairs and the smell of paint hit his nose. He wanted to go to the kitchen to get some water and probably something to munch down, but the light of the living room got is attention.

There he found Ryan, his fucking stubborn boyfriend, painting one of the walls in a warm clay color that Michael fought against because it looked horrible, but in reality looked actually nice as an accented wall. 

Ryan was in sweats and a white tee that was now obviously spotted with speckles of paint and, when he turned around to look at Michael, half of his face was covered in them too. Michael sat defeated in the sofa, pushed as far away from the wall and covered in some old fabric they had found around.

“Why are you like this?” He asked, leaning back and observing how Ryan worked the roller brush up to the tall areas. 

He surely didn’t expect so much honesty so early in the morning, it took him by surprise. “When you live in a house with white walls and nothing else on it, it starts to get to you at some point,” he answered, not even bothering to turn around.

“Nothing on the walls,” Michael repeated and Ryan stopped painting, just looked up at the wall.

“Now, we got something,” and then he kept working.

____

It didn’t take long for Geoff to notice about the food:

“Thanks for the dinner,” Ryan said after he had kissed Geoff’s cheek. His hands were damp from washing the dishes and Geoff felt it through his shirt. In response, as he always did, Geoff kissed him back while he finished cleaning up the counter and putting away everything.

It was normal that Ryan always thanked whoever was cooking, casually coming behind the cook and pressing a tender kiss. They never questioned and never seemed out of place. For some reason, that night something clicked.

Geoff wondered why Ryan did it.

It felt as a little too much to actually ask so he kept quiet and just watched. That was when he started noticing things that had always been there, habits that Ryan always had but they never noticed.

“We’re out of bread,” said Michael one morning, barely awake as he rummaged around the kitchen for breakfast.

Jeremy hummed from the table, scrolling down his phone. “Yeah, and milk too.”

No one said anything about going to the supermarket and no one had the incline to actually get dressed on a lazy Sunday. Geoff internally decided that it wasn’t going to be his responsibility and just left to the backyard to read a book.

It was midday when Geoff found Ryan putting something on the fridge, empty plastic bags fisted on his hand. He almost looked guilty –maybe ashamed, as if it was his responsibility to keep the house stocked.

Geoff dwelled on it but before he even knew, he was catching Ryan doing something else.

“We should go to the new restaurant Burnie was talking about,” Jack said, standing and leaning on his chair as he waited for everyone else to finish up for the day. Ryan could hear the clinking of the car keys echoing beside him. “It’s been a while since we went out.” It wasn’t a lie –the last time it was because of their office lunch with everyone and that felt like ages ago.

“Yeah, it sounds nice,” Michael answered as he leaned back on his chairs. “You up for it?”

Gavin let out a soft murmur that got him something thrown onto his head. “Ouch, why was that?”

“More excitement, c’mon! Let’s be fancy for one night,” Michael said.

“Yeah, I’m down,” Jeremy answered as he got up from his chair.

Geoff needed to say that dinner was incredible good and tasty, and he wanted to just stroll down to the kitchen to ask how they managed to do such fantastic food. They had a great time –it was something that they needed for a while, to remember how to go out in dates all together.

Tired and giddy faces were spreading across the table so they asked for the bill.

When the waitress returned and Jack opened to check everything, Geoff noticed how Ryan almost held his breath.

It wasn’t cheap but certainly something they could afford –if not, they wouldn’t be there on the first place. Either way, that fact didn’t seem to roll down onto Ryan’s mind as easy as theirs, because he seemed actually afraid when the waitress took a little too long after taking the credit card with her.

Getting out the restaurant was like a breath of fresh air and Geoff’s eyes found with Ryan’s.

“What’s up?” Ryan asked, as if his boyfriend hadn’t watched the fucking fifty shades of panic happening on his face. While Geoff wanted to say something, Ryan held his hand carefully and pressed a kiss to his tattooed fingers. He couldn’t.

“Nothing,” Geoff mumbled before they walked behind the others, hand in hand.

If he kept noticing things, if he noticed Ryan seemed almost embarrassed to ask for a second serving at lunch or dinner, if he noticed how Ryan frowned upon peppers and some herbs that he liked to use but ate them anyway, Geoff kept quiet.

He didn’t have the heart to bring it up because he knew how that felt.

“Why you do it?” Geoff asked to Ryan one night, the both of them curled up in the couch because neither of them could sleep. Ryan hummed, close eyed, before asking him to explain. So Geoff did, telling him everything he had notice.

There was a moment of quietness before Ryan huffed and curled closer to Geoff.

“I don’t take things for granted,” he said before falling asleep.

____

Jack noticed about the money:

“You didn’t have to buy me anything,” Ryan said as Jeremy handed him his wrapped gift, with a big golden bow because Gavin couldn’t stop himself. They had decorated the house with balloons just to annoy Ryan and they ate cake in bed for breakfast because why not.

Ryan repeated the words again as he opened his present with a loud Michael talking next to him. Jack stood there, keeping track of the same thing that he had been noticing the past few years: Ryan really meant it. He sounded thankful, of course he did, but there was some kind of honesty dripping into his words, almost as if he was ashamed or even angry that they had waster money on him.

Because to Ryan, it seemed like money was a big deal.

Jack noticed that it didn’t matter that they had stable jobs and money wasn’t a problem, Ryan cared about it. It wasn’t that type of frugality that some people are born with, but something that seemed more like a habit than anything else.

It wouldn’t be the first time Jack saw it. In time to time, when they discuss buying something expensive but necessary, Jack would fine small pieces of paper on Ryan’s jeans whenever he did laundry –there was always that small and messy handwriting, appearing on the list of pros and cons. It almost seemed that he did it on paper with the intention that no one noticed he wrote it.

Ryan was also the type of person that wouldn’t ask anything for himself. Jack still had Ryan’s panic face burnt on his memory when Geoff gifted him some expensive piece for his computer.

“No,” he said, pushing the box away from him. Ryan almost looked as if he was about to cry.

“Ryan,” Geoff said, frowning and pushing it back to him.

“Take it back” and he got up and hid on the office at home, sulking until Michael convinced him to stop acting like a teenager and accept the god dammed thing. He apologized and Geoff only smiled, pulling him into a quick but sweet kiss.

It took Jack a while to sit down and ask him why he was like this with money –he didn’t exactly have any reason to be so, so careful with it now.

He found Ryan doing taxes, hunched over the kitchen table as Jack cooked dinner for them, since everyone else was out for some screening or something. It would be a lie if Jack said he didn’t observe him, trying not to burn the food in between: Ryan was so careful with it that it was starting to get on Jack’s nerves. It seemed as if he didn’t want to make any mistake while doing so, as if any penny counted.

And don’t get Jack wrong, every penny counted but it was almost paranoiac the way Ryan was doing it.

“Why are you so careful?” Jack asked, helping Ryan get the things out of the table to set it with the plates and such.

Ryan looked at him, looking over his glasses. “With what?”

Jack gestured at the papers, as if it was obvious.

“Ah,” he answered before grabbing the ones Jack was handing out to him. He leaned on the table, looking a little defeated. “I had some difficult times with it.” There was a pause and Jack seemed to be more confused with the answer, so Ryan added:

“When you spend your life seeing only double digits on your bank account, you realize how important it is,” and that was that.

____

Gavin also noticed Ryan’s busy hands:

“Have a good flight,” was what Ryan said, casually, while sitting at the kitchen table with the home computer dismantled on top of it.

With his small luggage on his hand, Gavin just stood there for a moment frowning.

“It’s five am, Rye,” he said, leaning his stuff on the wall and walking towards his boyfriend. Ryan shrugged, glasses perched on his nose, while Gavin still frowned at him. “You’re taking your computer apart at five am.”

“And your taxi is waiting outside, Gav,” Ryan mumbled before looking at his boyfriend with tired eyes. He left on the table whatever he had on hand and zipped Gavin’s jacket all the way –it was a little too big on him, it wouldn’t be a surprise if it was Jack’s. “Go, have a good trip. Don’t do anything stupid.”

With thin lips, Gavin looked at him and nodded. Pressing a tender kiss to Ryan’s lips, he left the house.

It took a lot of him to not think about Ryan on the flight to New York.

Certainly, there was a story with him and insomnia that wasn’t strange to anyone in the household but, for the first time in years, Gavin realized that Ryan always had something on his hands –for some reason, it seemed as if he never stopped doing something, as if he hated wasting time.

If it wasn’t dismantling and putting the computer back together at five in the morning, it would be a book nestled with him when everyone decided to go to sleep. If it wasn’t that, it would be something in the house that needed repeating or helping Jack with a new wood project back in the garage, or a new game that needed to be checked out, or even mowing the grass.

Ryan was always active, always busy even on their free days.

“Do you ever relax?” Gavin asked out of the blue one day, just the two of them out in a date.

Ryan looked from the glass of coke he had ordered and cleared his throat. “I do relax,” and there must have been something on the way Gavin looked, the _I don’t believe you_ obvious on his face. “I just like to keep myself busy.”

“But, all the time?” Gavin asked, still confused.

“I-I got used to it,” Ryan replied, almost ashamed. His elbows were on the table and his hands clasped, his chin resting on them. He looked around, a few seconds of silence between them, before he sighed. “I had to work hard before I landed at Rooster Teeth. I didn’t have much time to relax or rest, to be honest.”

Gavin kept quiet, because he didn’t know what to say in response.

“I guess old habits die hard,” he added with a sad smile.

____

It ended with Jeremy noticing Ryan:

“What’s up with you?” Geoff asked to Ryan, a few days after the failure that the Destiny Raid was –even if they succeeded in defeating the Leviathan. It was only them and Jeremy on the office, while the others had gone out to get lunch. Jeremy caught Ryan look through the small space between monitors, a guilt expression on his face. “You’ve been quiet.”

Ryan seemed like he didn’t want to talk about it, biting his own tongue. “I’ve talked on the videos, what do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, Haywood,” he mumbled a little lower than before.

“It’s nothing,” Ryan said after a while. “I’ll be fine, okay?”

Geoff only hummed back. Jeremy saw how he got up, pressed a kiss onto Ryan’s temple, and walked out of the room without saying much.

It took that for Jeremy to start noticing, well, _Ryan_.

He seemed fine to be ignored, as if whatever he was about to say wasn’t important, or worse, as if he was used to it. And well, in a relationship with six guys, it was something daily. At breakfast, they weren’t that chatty for obvious reasons but at dinner, it was a whole other story: they were loud, laughing and commenting things they had seen through the day. It wasn’t like that every night but those kinds of nights were great and left them all giddy.

It wasn’t Jeremy’s fault that his eyes fell on Ryan more than once, when he would start saying something to be interrupted and he would just forget about what he was going to say. It happened many times, only voicing his opinion on those blessed quiets.

“What were you going to say, Rye?” Jeremy interrupted Michael and all of the turn to him, expecting.

Then, he noticed how he flusters under the attention, eyes never meeting their eyes and hands always with something on them. It might not happen with the crowds because there was a little distance between them, but under their kitchen light, dinning all together, it seemed a little too intimate, and Ryan blushed.

“Why you don’t speak out?” Jeremy asked him one afternoon.

They had been driving around Austin in the car, just listening to some music, because it made Jeremy feel younger. It was also funny to hear Ryan make up words of songs he didn’t know and Africa by Toto always had a special place on the long playlist.

Ryan rested his head on the headrest with his eyes closed, arm out of the window and the fresh summer wind blowing on his face. “Speak out?”

“You’re alright when we speak over you. And you seem nervous when we pay attention to you,” he pointed out. Jeremy glanced at him, his aviator glasses on his face. “You know we love you, don’t you?”

For some reason, that made Ryan laugh. “I know you do.”

There was some Smash Mouth song playing but Ryan speaking again brought Jeremy to reality once again.

“I’m accustomed to being no one,” he replied out of the blue and they didn’t say anything until they reach home.

____

In the beginning, it was like this:

“Fuck,” Ryan mumbled as he lied in the dark, trying to fall asleep even when he knew he won’t.

He turned around in bed, mostly because his mind kept wondering if his next pay was going to be enough for the next month’s rent. There was a part of him that wanted to panic, as if it was the first time, even when it was obviously not. The landlord was tired of seeing him around and Ryan was tired too, the pity eyes he got every time he knocked on the door were enough for a lifetime.

It had been a couple of hard years for Ryan.

The thing was, there was no beginning to the problem. It just started happening and Ryan kept wondering what went wrong –there were moments where he wanted to place the blame on something else, blame someone else, everyone if he could, because that was the easy way out. Yet, he kept it to himself, throwing that emotional luggage over his shoulder and shutting the fuck up.

He didn’t have anyone –not his parents, not his family, and not his friends. In that Texan city, Ryan felt alone.

The only thing he could do was work his ass off.

Ryan left home and worked, knowing well that what he made wouldn’t be enough. Ryan got home and worked on his laptop with the shitty public wifi the county installed a few months ago, but that wasn’t enough still. Right now, he barely slept because Ryan’s head was running between thinking of getting a third job and being not good enough.

Every day was a little more difficult.

He left home early to catch his bus and get to work in time. He got home late to an almost empty and small apartment, mostly because he never had enough to actually buy proper furniture. The white walls welcomed him every day, haunting him. He showered with lukewarm water because the landlord casually forgot about fixing that problem and Ryan didn’t have the strength to complain when he knew he was behind the pay. He took a small dinner before sitting and doing some work on his too-old-to-be-functioning laptop.

By the time he got to bed, Ryan was exhausted.

He usually asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but there were days like these where he just stared at the ceiling, tears quietly streaming down his face in anger and impotency.

He wondered when it would be the day.

The day when he would wake up in a place he could call home, with stuff lying around and things hung up from the walls, probably paint it in warm colors. The day when he didn’t have to check the price of the food at the supermarket twice, when he could buy whatever he wanted and keep his house stocked. The day where money wasn’t something that kept him awake at night, where he didn’t try to meet the month’s end with only a few bucks. The day when he could relax, sleeping past midday without feeling guilty.

Ryan wondered, every day and night, about the day when being alive didn’t feel like a burden.

So he finally slept that night, tired and exhausted and stressed, wondering if he will ever have enough to pay for living.

He wondered if he will ever wake up happy.

_____

Ryan woke up one day, feeling warm between the sheets.

It didn’t take him long to realize that he was alone in bed and, after checking his phone, he saw it was late morning –which explained the sun not shining onto the bedroom as it did every sunrise. He stayed in bed a little longer, eyes closed, hearing the discussion happening downstairs and the smell of coffee hitting his nose, and the shower running in the bathroom. Ryan opened his eyes and found yellow walls around him, pictures and photos of them decorating the bedroom, his own plants resting over the dresser next to a lamp in the shape of an anchor that they gifted Geoff a few years ago.

Suddenly there were tears on his eyes: he woke up to the life of his dreams.

It wasn’t anything fancy but everyone was safe and healthy, money wasn’t a concern and he was properly happy. There was a suddenly explosion of pure happiness on his chest, that almost didn’t let him breath.

That was how Jeremy found him, crying his heart out with a smile on his face. Even when he was only on his boxers and dripping water everywhere, Jeremy crawled close to his boyfriend and pulled Ryan into a tight hug. He shushed him softly, mostly because it seemed as if he was about to pass out.

“You okay?” Jeremy asked when Ryan seemed to calm down.

Ryan nodded, a smile blooming softly onto his face. “Yeah, I’m great.”

It seemed like his answer was too cheery and that made Jeremy confused. He asked if he wanted to call one of the gents, and Ryan just shook his head. He pressed the palm of his hands against his eyes, trying to make it look as if he had never cried in the first place.

“I’m great, really. Let’s go down to get breakfast,” and at that point, everything seem worth it.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> For the first time in years, when Ryan stared working at Rooster Teeth and he was finally being able to pay his rent and _everything else_ , the first thing he brought was a plant: it was a small cactus, which didn't require anything else beside sun.
> 
> For the first time in years, he felt it was a new beginning.


End file.
